Chapter 3
Legend
The call comes in before the sun. My burner rattles on the metal shelf by my bed.
I’m already halfway dressed, boots on, cut thrown over my bare chest, cigarette burning between my lips.
I don’t sleep anymore. Not really. Not since this mess started unraveling and we let Becki Crowley stay under our roof like she ain't poison.
Oaks doesn’t even say hello. His voice is gravel ground under a truck tire.
“She’s gone.”
“Who?” I ask, even though I already know.
“That twenty-year-old who Darla refused to serve at Heck’s Kitchen a couple weeks ago. Sang in the Pearly Gates choir. Walked out of church and vanished into thin fuckin’ air.”
I crush the cigarette into the ashtray and curse under my breath. That’s three in less than two weeks. Three girls with ties to the Reverend’s flock. Two barely old enough to drink, one still in high school.
This ain’t coincidence. This is a pattern. A trail of smoke leading back to fire.
And I know exactly where that fire lives.
Becki's father. The Reverend. Ezekiel Crowley.
I hang up without another word.
My boots slam against the concrete hallway as I move through the Lockup. The place smells like stale beer, leather, sweat, and the memory of last night’s argument.
Sophie crying. Becki screaming. The men shouting. All of it still lingers like smoke clinging to rafters. Half the brothers are asleep. The other half are probably drunk or high. Doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for backup. This is between me and the devil in a preacher’s suit.
I pass Royal’s room.
The door’s locked. Reinforced. Too quiet.
She’s in there. Becki. The preacher’s daughter. The girl who nearly destroyed Sophie with one whispered threat. Now shackled to Royal’s bed like a sin we don’t know how to confess.
For a moment, I stop.
I listen.
Nothing. No chain rattling. No soft cry. No curse. No plea.
Just silence thick enough to choke on.
And memories I damn well don’t want.
Sixteen. Her bedroom window open to the warm Kentucky night. Her hair brushing my cheek. Her lips stained with trouble. Her voice whispering my name like a prayer no church would ever bless.
I shake it off and keep moving. I have no business remembering Becki Crowley.
Pearly Gates rises like a crown made of lies when I pull up on my Harley.
The Reverend lives in a mansion built by tithes and dirty money.
Hell is full of folks who think they’re saved just because they write checks to men like him.
The security lights flare. The place looks pristine.
Polished stone. White columns. Fake stained-glass windows showing saints that never lived in hearts so unholy.
Crowley opens the door before my boots hit the first step.
“Hudson,” he greets, and it’s not a name anymore. It’s a hook he’s trying to set.
“Don’t call me that.”
He smiles with no warmth. “My house is the Lord’s house. You’re always welcome.”
“I ain’t here for fellowship.”
His foyer reeks of expensive candles and rot dressed up as righteousness. Crowley stands there in pressed slacks and a black button-down like he’s meeting a governor, not a biker who wants to cave his skull in.
“A girl went missing again,” I say. “Your choir. Your flock. Again.”
He sips his coffee. Black. No sugar. No soul.
“Tragic,” he murmurs. “The world is dangerous.”
“Yeah,” I growl. “Especially for girls tied to you.”
His eyes flicker, just for a second. Not fear. That man doesn’t know fear. Arrogance, yes. Disdain, always.
“If you think I’m responsible for these disappearances,” he says. “You’re mistaken.”
“You always hide behind scripture. But scripture won’t save you from me.”
His smile sharpens. “Careful. You and I both know who holds the keys to salvation in this town.”
Salvation.
The man wouldn’t know salvation if it dragged him into the river.
I lean in. “You mess with my people again. I’ll make sure your flock finds out exactly what kind of man you really are.”
“Your people?”
“Yeah, you know damn well, that girl came to the club or to a match. And that’s why… I’ll bury you so deep no one’ll find the bones.”
He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t sweat. He doesn’t tremble.
But he knows.
He knows I’m close.
He knows we’re all circling like wolves just outside his holy gates.
“My daughter’s the only reason I called my people home. Best make sure she’s protected.”
I turn and leave before I do something stupid. My blood’s boiling. My head’s pounding. I don’t trust that man any further than I could throw his bloated self-righteous corpse. And now there’s Becki. Locked in Royal’s room. Still breathing, still dangerous, still tangled in all of this.
The ride back to the clubhouse feels heavier than it should. The sun is barely rising over Hell, Kentucky, but the yard is already alive with patch members buzzing like hornets. Word travels fast. Whispered curses. Fists clenching. Rage simmering in the morning air.
Inside, Sophie is pacing. Her cheeks are flushed, her pretty green eyes tired, fists tight enough her knuckles bleach white. When she sees me, it’s pure fire.
“You said she’d be gone.” Her voice shakes. “You promised.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Working on it?” She stalks toward me like she’s ready to swing.
“Legend, Becki threatened my family. My father. My home. And you locked her up instead of getting rid of her. She’s still here.
Still breathing. Still watching me from behind those stupid eyelashes like everything she wants should belong to her. ”
“She ain’t leaving until I figure out what Crowley’s hiding.”
Sophie steps closer, voice low and deadly. “If she’s here tomorrow, I ain’t.”
My chest cracks open like she reached in and pulled something out. Sophie doesn’t bluff. She doesn’t storm off lightly. When she leaves, it’s final.
“Princess…”
“Don’t say it.” Her voice breaks. “Not while she’s still under what you swore was our roof.”
She turns and walks away, heels sharp against the concrete, back straight, hair swinging like a final warning. I watch her go, guilt burning behind my ribs like someone lit a match inside me.
But my feet betray me.
I go back down the hallway to Royal’s door.
I stand there.
Listening.
Not knocking.
Not unlocking.
Just breathing in the silence on the other side.
She’s in there.
Becki.
The liar.
The girl who looked at me once like I hung the damn stars.
The girl who looked at Sophie like she wanted to rip them all down.
And God help me, I feel it again. The echo of something I should’ve buried. The ghost of a girl sitting on a graveyard bench with wet hair and a cigarette glowing between her fingers.
Sixteen-year-old me was a fool.
Thirty-three-year-old me is worse.
I remember her twirling barefoot in the summer rain behind Pearly Gates, dress sticking to her skin, laughter breaking across the headstones. The air smelled like honeysuckle and wet dirt. She looked like sin with a heartbeat.
“You’re gonna catch a cold,” I told her.
“I’m already burning,” she said.
Then she climbed onto my lap right there in the preacher’s graveyard. My hands on her waist. Her breath on my mouth. The storm steaming around us.
“Do you believe in God?” she whispered.
“Not the one your daddy worships.”
“Good,” she said, leaning closer. “Because He would hate this.”
I fucked her.
“You’re the only one who sees me,” she whispered.
Maybe that’s why she’s so dangerous.
Because part of me never stopped seeing her. We fucked for a long time. That’s over now.
I light another cigarette and walk away from the door before I damn myself further. Tomorrow, I have to make a choice.
About Sophie.
About Becki.
About Crowley.
About the missing girls.
About the monster we all pretend doesn’t stalk the Hollow after dark.
Tonight, all I have are ghosts.
And they know me by name.